Kontextmaschine

7th April 2023

Post reblogged from the all-befouling baby with 177 notes

transgenderer:
In Japanese, I’m told, a slight modification in one word or reference changes a sentence entirely, so that— I don’t know Japanese, I’m making this up— if a syllable changes in one word, then “the crickets are singing in chorus in the starlight” becomes “the taxicabs are in gridlock at the intersection.” I gather that Japanese poetry uses these almost-double meanings deliberately. A line of poetry can be translucent, as it were, to another meaning it could have if it were in a different context. The surface significance allows a possible alternate significance to register at the same time.
does anyone know if this is a real thing UKLG is referring to? if so, word for it, examples?
some googling turns up this:
Kakekotoba - Wikipedia
Kakekotoba - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
which looks like is just “japanese has a lot of homophones and poets will use them for artistic effect,” more or less the same as they will in english

Yeah a lot of it is that Japanese (a non-tonal language) repeatedly borrowed words from tonal Chinese, stripping them of tone (so that several words once distinct were now identical) and then re-borrowed the same roots centuries later after meaning and pronunciation had drifted, with the result that there are a ton of words that sound the same and punning is a major feature of Japanese-language culture.

It is huge in Japanese poetry (where the regular suffixed conjugation makes end rhyme trivial), the most honored stuff – even stuff you might be familiar and impressed with – translates poorly because you can only translate one meaning at a time, lacking the centuries of cultural context that would make the others even make sense.

Tagged: meanwhile in japan nihongo